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y 4 













IMPEACHMENT OF THE PRESIDENT 


The House having under consideration the resolu- 
tion reported from the Committee on Reconstruction | 
for the impeachment, of the President— 

Mr. JONES said: 

Mr. Speaker: We are indeed rapidly mak¬ 
ing eventful history; we hear it said even 
in the streets that we are in the midst of 
revolution. This Congress has swiftly gone 
from one extreme to another in violations of 
the Constitution, and this House having failed 
before on grave charges, now proposes to im¬ 
peach the President of the United States on a 
mere pretext, as suddenly seized upon as it is 
unwarrantable and preposterous. • 

The last hours of this arbitrary debate on so 
important a proposition are closing upon us, 
and we have hardly time to collect our thoughts, 
much less to express them. May we not stay 
this impetuous prosecution for a moment and 
take an example from history? Impeachment 
is the most solemn procedure that ever engaged 
a deliberative assembly. Warren Hastings, a 
mere subject of the crown and appointee as 
Governor General of India, was impeached be¬ 
fore the British House of Lords. His trial 
itself lasted one hundred and forty-seven days, 
and the case, from its inception to its close, 
occupied the Parliament, from time to time, 
through a series of seven long years. The mas¬ 
ter minds of England—Burke and Pitt and 
Fox and Sheridan and Windham and Earl 
Grey—exhausted their powers on this great 
case, and Edmund Burke, in one of the most 
marked efforts of forensic eloquence the world 
has known, alone occupied four days in its de¬ 
livery. In his closing speech he said : 

“My lords, I have done! The part of the Com¬ 
mons is concluded. With a trembling hand we con¬ 
sign the product of these long, long labors to your 
charge. Take it! Take it! It is a sacred trust! 
Never before was a cause of such magnitude sub¬ 
mitted to any human tribunal. A business which 
has so long occupied the councils of Great Britain 
cannot possibly be hurried over in the course of 
vulgar, trite, and trarftitory events. Nothing but 
some of those great revolutions that break the tradi¬ 
tionary chain of human memory, and alter the very 


face of nature itself, can possibly obscure it. My 
lords, we are all elevated to a degree of importance 
by it. The meanest of us will by means of it become 
more or less the concern of posterity. It has pleased 
Providence to place us in such astate that we appear 
every moment to be on the verge of some great mu¬ 
tation. There is one thing, and one thing only, that 
defies mutation—that which existed before theworld 
itself. Imeanjustice; that justice which, emanating 
from the Divinity, has a place in the breast of every 
one of us, given us for our guide with regard to our¬ 
selves and with regard to others, and which will 
stand after this globe is burned to ashes our advo¬ 
cate or our accuser before the great Judge, when he 
comes to call upon us for the tenor of a well-spent 
life.” 

This long extract is only pardonable because 
of its fitness to the present occasion. I com¬ 
mend these memorable words to this House. 
What deliberation ! what solemnity was there 
invoked by the mighty spirit of a mighty age! 
But what do we behold here, sir, and in this 
case? The Chief Magistrate of one of the 
greatest nations on earth, without crime or mis¬ 
demeanor or the shadow of either, but really 
for the faithful discharge of his sworn duty to 
the Constitution, and for vindicating his own 
self-respect and official dignity, to be accused, 
tried, convicted, and deposed, as is threatened 
by his prosecutors, in the short space of ten 
days. Compare the two cases. Is not this 
indeed a commentary upon the wisdom, the 
dignity, and the justice of an American Con¬ 
gress? 11 0 temporal 0 moresV ’ The day 
too, sir, on which this proceeding was begun, 
the period in our history, the circumstances 
which surround us, all so inappropriate for 
such business, only serve to illustrate the re¬ 
lentless ardor and blind fanaticism which con¬ 
trol the majority in this House. On that day, 
the natal anniversary of the Father of his 
Country, when the American people are accus¬ 
tomed to assemble together and celebrate it in 
glittering marches, delightful measures, and 
joyous pastimes by day and in bonfires and 
Illuminations by night; when tlijs Capitol itself 
in its peerless beauty and grandeur should have 
been an object of fraternal visitation, and the 
scene of mutual exchanges of proud and grate- 





4 


fill emotions, we were required to sit here day 
and night listening to vain and empty declama¬ 
tion, the reiteration of unfounded and gratui¬ 
tous charges against one who I believe has 
acted in the conscientious discharge of his duty 
and in zeal, public justice, and patriotism is no 
unlit successor of the immortal Washington. 
Consider the period in our history. A great 
war has just, desolated our land; the people of 
ten States are denied representation in both 
Houses of Congress; their civil government 
has been stricken down; every vestige of con¬ 
stitutional liberty has been wrenched from 
them, and they are placed in a great degree 
under the domination of their former slaves. 
Their structure of society, their civilization, in 
a word, has been upturned and destroyed. 
They are leveled to the dust, appealing to us 
for liberal laws and the permission to obey 
them; their manhood only preventing them 
from appealing for the bread of life for which, 
indeed, they are suffering. 

Those rich States which contributed over 
three hundred millions in staples alone to the 
annual wealth of the country are prostrate, im¬ 
poverished, and despairing under military rule. 
Their commerce is lost., their markets are de¬ 
stroyed, and ruin stalks abroad through their 
fields and cities. The people of the North are 
compelled not only to bear their own heavy 
burdens of taxation, but must also make up the 
deficit of the non-producingSouth, And sustain, 
besides tlie costly Government wliich rules it, 
a despotism as dark and absolute as that which 
overshadows Poland. See, too, the condition 
of our people in the northern States themselves ; 
their financial embarrassment, the stagnation 
intrude and commerce, the tenantless work¬ 
shops, the idle laborers in every vocation of 
life; indeed, squalid poverty meeting us at 
every step we take in the streets that lead from 
the Capitol. They appeal to us day by day and 
hour by hour in petitions and otherwise, and 
almost cry out with uplifted hands for us to do 
something to relieve the country from the dis¬ 
tress and impending ruin which everywhere 
seem apparent. And yet. in thisalarmingcrisis 
in our affairs, we are to turn a deaf ear to these 
appeals, stop the wheels of legislation, and go 
into the impeachment of the Executive without 
law, cause, or decency. A trial, rather a stu¬ 
pendous farce, involving much valuable time 
and perhaps millions of the hard-earned treas¬ 
ure of a tux-burdened and suffering people. 
No adequate preparation for debate, the gag put 
upon the minority, and the scene carried on 
with a levity and a ribaldry better becoming 
charlatans than the legislators of a brave and 
■ i-)’■'(>. v vul3 iffor wbnr.. sir: in the name 
or liocl and qur country for what? Simply to 
.-..>-.0- *>.:>»} to heir desperate machina¬ 

tions: to gratify hate and vengeance, and to 
preserve power in the hands of a ruthless 
majority. 


I call aloud upon the people to turn their 
eyes to the Capitol to see what is being enacted 
in this high place of the nation, to look to their 
public servants, whether they are properly 
exercising the great trusts committed to them, 
or are guilty of base subterfuges and monstrous 
abuses of power. Can, 0I1! can the Republic 
much longer stand this strain upon its vital 
energies ? 

But what, sir, is the case before us? what 
the offense committed by the President, or 
what the charge preferred against him? He 
has simply attempted to remove a Cabinet 
officer. Had he not the right, and was it not 
his duty to do so? This question is of a two¬ 
fold character. Let us briefly examine it. 
AlPpower in our Government, whether legis¬ 
lative, executive, or judicial, is derived from 
the Constitution, its fundamental law. That 
Constitution was the work of master minds, 
who having scrutinized the more liberal forms 
of civil polity which had existed in Greece 
and Pome and Carthage, and throughout the 
succeeding ages, especially the models of the 
Batavian and Helvetic confederacies—the 
^jnily examples which remained of former re¬ 
publics—after all drew their best and wisest 
lessons from the British constitution, which 
was pronounced by the celebrated Montes¬ 
quieu to be the “mirror of political liberty.” 
Upon this, with such modifications and im¬ 
provements as the wisdom and experience of 
ourgreat statesmen suggested, was founded the 
Federal Constitution. It is a congregation 
solely of delegated powers, and establishes a 
compound system of government. Its powers 
are divided under three great beads, legisla¬ 
tive, executive, and judicial, separate and 
distinct, equal and coordinate, and by the 
maintenance of each in its integrity depends 
the very existence of the whole. It is in this 
triple harmony, this political trinity, if I may 
so speak, that consists the beauty, the virtue, 
and the glory of our Federal system. This 
happy equilibrium of the forces of government 
was the result, of all the learning of our fathers, 
and it was to establish this in absolute verity 
that they examined so closely and steered so 
narrowly between all the models before them, 

Montesquieu says: 

“When tho legislative and executivo powers aro 
united in tho samo person or body there can be no 
liberty.” 

Madison says: 

“ It will not be denied that power is of an en¬ 
croaching nature, and thatit ought to bo effectually 
restrained from passing the limits assigned to it.” 

Again he says: 

“ In order to lay a due foundation for that separate 
and distinct oxerciso of tho different powers of Gov¬ 
ernment which, to a certain extent, is admitted on 
all bauds t<> be essential to the preservation of lib¬ 
erty, it is evident that each department should have 
a will of its own.” 

Hamilton says: 

“An absolute or qualified negativo in the execu- 










5 


tivc upon the acts of tlio legislative body is admitted 
by the ablest adepts in political scienco to be an in¬ 
dispensable barrier agaiust the encroachments of tho 
latter upon the former.” 

Washington says, in his Farewell Address: 

‘‘The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate 
the powers of all tho departments in one, and thus 
to create, whatever the form of government, a real 
despotism.” 

Such is the language of a great lawgiver, 
of the chief authors of the Constitution itself, 
and of the Father of his Country. But what 
does the instrument itself say: 

"Tho executive power shall be vested in a Presi¬ 
dent of the United States. 

** lie shall take care that the laws be faithfully 
executed, and shall commission all the officers of tho 
United States.” 

He solemnly swearS that he will, faithfully 
execute the office of President, and will to the 
best of his ability preserve, protect, and de¬ 
fend the Constitution of the United States. 

After these opinions and this, the written 
organic law, who can doubt that the President 
had the right to perform the very act for which 
he is accused? The power to remove from 
office would seem naturally and logically to 
follow the power to appoint, but the Constitu^ 
tion has required that the appointment by the 
President of embassadors, other public ipinis- 
ters and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, 
and other officers of the United States whose 
appointments are not otherwise provided for, 
shall be sanctioned “by the advice and con¬ 
sent of the Senate;” but mark, however, that 
the power of the President to remove any of 
the above mentioned officials, except those 
whose removal is provided for by impeach¬ 
ment, and among whom are not the heads of the 
Executive Departments, was in no manner re¬ 
strained or qualified. It was deemed to be 
inherent in the very nature of his office and in 
its proper execution. But fortunately upon 
this point we are not left to cavil or conjecture. 
The question, after being freely and fully dis¬ 
cussed at an early period in the legislative 
branch of the Government, and by many of 
the authors of the Constitution themselves, was 
expressly settled. It arose in the House of 
Representatives in 1789, on a bill for establish¬ 
ing the Department of Foreign Affairs, in 
which the direct question of the removal of its 
chief officer by the President came up ; which, 
indeed, involved the exercise of that power 
in all the subordinate departments under the 
executive branch of the Government. With¬ 
out the time to allude even partially to the 
able arguments of those who participated in 
this debate, I conceive that no better sum¬ 
mary and conclusion upon its whole scope can 
be adduced than an extract from the speech of 
Mr. Madison, who was its master spirit. He 
said: 

“The question now resolves itself into this: is 
the power of displacing an executive power ? I con¬ 


ceive that if any power whatsoever is in the Execu¬ 
tive it is the power of appointing, overseeing, and 
controlling thoso who execute the laws. If tho Con¬ 
stitution had not qualified tho power of the Presi¬ 
dent in appointing to office by associating the Senate 
with him in that busiuess. would it not bo clear that 
ho would have tho right, by virtue of his executive 
power, to make such appointment? Should wo bo 
authorized, in defiance of that clause in the Consti¬ 
tution, ‘The executive power shall be vested in tho 
President’ to unite tho Senate with tho President in 
the appointment to office? I conceive not. If it is 
admitted that wo should not bo authorized to do this 
I think it may be disputed whether we have a right 
to associate them in removing persons from office, 
tho one power being as much of an executive nature 
as tho other; and tho first one is authorized by being 
excepted out of the general rule established by tho 
Constitution in theso words: ‘The executive power 
shall be vested iu the President.’ ’ 

This, then, is the general rule. An excep¬ 
tion was made in the power of appointing but 
none in the power of removing; therefore it 
remained absolute. 

The question was thereupon decided in the 
House of Representatives by a vote of 34 to 
20 and in the Senate by the casting vote of the 
Vice President. But this principle is still fur¬ 
ther vindicated by a decision of the Supreme 
Court in 1830 in the case ex parte Ilerren. 
That court there held that— 

‘‘No ono denied tho power of tho President and 
Senate jointly to remove when tho tenuro of ofiico 
was not fixed by the Constitution, which was a full 
recognition of the principle that tho power of re¬ 
moval was incident to tho power of appointment; 
but it was very early adopted as a practical con¬ 
struction of tho Constitution that this power was 
vested in the President alone, and such would appear 
to have been tho legislative construction of the Con¬ 
stitution, lor, in tho organization of tho three great 
Departments of State, War, and Treasury, in 1/89, 
provision was made for tho appointment of a sub¬ 
ordinate officer by tho head of tho Department who 
should have charge of the records, books, and pa pers 
appertaining totibe ofiico when the head of the De¬ 
partment shonldvJe removed J rom office by the President 
of the United States. 

The Navy Department, was not established 
till 1798, and the court held substantially that 
its chief officer existed under the same tenure 
as the other Secretaries and was removable by 
the President, thus recognizing the principle 
that the power of removal was vested in the 
President atone in such cases, although the 
appointment of the officer is by the President 
and Senate. 

Here, then, we have the emphatic decision 
of the legislative and the judiciary, two of tho 
three coordinate branches of the Government. 

Now, if we can unite with these in judgment 
and practice the executive branch our argu¬ 
ment is complete and the position of President 
Johnson thoroughly sustained. Here it is most 
timely and aplly illustrated. On the 12th May, 
1800, John Adams peremptorily removed, 
while the Senate was in session , the Secretary 
of State, Timothy Pickering, as appears bv the 
following letter: 

12lh May, 1800. 

Sir: Divers causes and considerations essential to 
I tho administration of tho Government in my judg- 













ment requiring a change in the Department of State, 
you are hereby discharged from any further services 
as Secretary of State. JOHN ADAMS, 

President of the United States. 

To Timothy Pickering, Philadelphia. 

Subsequently he nominated John Marshall 
as Secretary of State in place of Mr. Picker¬ 
ing, and the Senate had no other notice. Can 
it be necessary to add anything more? 

Ouir most learned and distinguished com¬ 
mentators upon the Federal Constitution and 
laws, Justice Story and Judge Kent, in dis¬ 
cussing this question, referring to these decis¬ 
ions, consider the whole matter as settled and 
acquiesced in by the Government and the 
people. Removal from office in his subordi¬ 
nate departments has ever been the undisputed 
practice of the Executive, and was especially 
manifested in the splendid administration of 
General Jackson, and in the language of Daniel 
Webster in a case involving the same prin¬ 
ciple : 

“Thus has the important question been settled by 
construction, settled by precedent, settled by the 
practice of the Government, and settled by statute.” 

But Congress, not satisfied with this repeat¬ 
edly-settled constitutional power, and wishing 
to make the executive authority subservient to” 
the legislative, on the 2d March, 1867, passed 
the tenure-of-office bill. That bill, none can 
doubt, is, in its provisions, violative of the 
Constitution and the decisions and authorities 
referred to. The President promptly put 
upon it his veto, and I have yet to see the re¬ 
spectable, unbiased authority which denies the 
reason and the justice of his constitutional 
prohibition. 

In this act he was supported by the opinion 
of every member of his Cabinet, and no one 
of them expressed his abhorrence of the bill 
with so much emphasis as this now valiant 
knight of the War Office, Edwin M. Stanton. 
Indeed, such was the ability with which he 
descanted upon its odious provisions that the 
President desired him to prepare his veto, 
which only press of business denied him that 
pleasure. The bill, however, becomes a law, 
at least we will so consider it for the purposes 
of the argument, and we are now told that the 
President has violated it, and in doing which 
he has been guilty of high crimes and misde¬ 
meanors, sufficient to warrant his impeach¬ 
ment and removal from office. His accusers 
base the entire charge of this violation upon a 
single provision of the bill; it is this: 

“ Be it enacted, &c.. That every person holding any 
civil office to which he has been appointed by and 
with the advice and consent of the Senate, and every 
person who shall hereafter be appointed to anysuch 
office, and shall become duly qualified to aettherein, 
is and shall be entitled to hold such office until a suc¬ 
cessor shall have been in like manner appointed and 
duly qualified except as herein otherwise provided: 
Provided. That the Secretaries of State, of the Trea¬ 
sury, of War, of the Navy, and of the Interior, the 
Postmaster General and the Attorney General, shall 


hold their offices respectively for and during the 
term of the President by whom they may have been 
appointed, and for one month thereafter, subject to 
removal by and with the advice and consent of the 
Senate.” 

Who can doubt that here is a provision and 
exception that the Secretaries of State, of the 
| Treasury, of War, of the Navy, of the Interior, 
the Postmaster General, and the Attorney Gen¬ 
eral, are not included within the scope and 
i meaning of this bill, but are in its spirit and 
j letter expressly exempted? And such was the 
! expressed opinion of the author and the sup- 
I porters of the bill at the time of its passage in 
the Senate. They were to hold their offices 
respectively for and during the term of the 
President by whom they were appointed and 
for one month thereafter. It only remains, 
then, to determine by whom and for whose 
term the Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton, 
was appointed. Who denies that he was 
appointed by Abraham Lincoln, and therefore 
could only hold his office for Lincoln’s term 
and one month thereafter, except by the reap¬ 
pointment or mere sufferance of President 
Johnson? Could language be plainer, could 
fact be more patent ? He bears no commission 
from Johnson, and has only retained the place 
of Secretary of War through the too patient 
endurance of that President. 

But, to spin out sophistry refined, it is claimed 
by some that Lincoln’s term has not expired, 
and we must therefore tolerate the official life' 
of the dignitary Stanton, if indeed he naturally 
abides for four years and one month there¬ 
after. Is Lincoln dead, or does he still live? * 
Can dead men hold office and administer 
human affairs? Had we not a Tyler admin¬ 
istration and a Fillmore administration; and 
is not this the administration of Andrew John¬ 
son, who succeeded to the Presidency as they 
did? To assume that this is the term of Lin¬ 
coln is to reject the laws of nature and to belie* 
the evidence of our own senses. The term of 
the office and the term of the officer are very 
different things; the one is fixed bylaw, the 
other depends upon the life, the removal, or 
resignation of the officer. The provision in. 
the bill did not refer to the term of the office, 
but to “the term of the President,” the 
officer who then held it. 

This strained construction is but another 
manifestation of radical frenzy and despera¬ 
tion. President Johnson, then, in the attempt 
to remove Mr. Stanton, has in no manner vio¬ 
lated this law in its strict letter and bearing; 
but if he had, what more can be made of it 
than, that in the exercise of a high preroga¬ 
tive lie had chosen to act in accordance with 
previous laws of Congress, which had been 
confirmed by the Supreme Court, rather than 
of this which he had vetoed, and the constitu¬ 
tionality of which had not been passed upon ? 













7 


Had lie not the right, too, to test a law the 
validity of which he and his Cabinet and the 
most learned of the land had at least doubted? 
This right inures to the humblest citizen of the 
Republic. In the attempt to displace Mr. Stan¬ 
ton, and to install General Lorenzo Thomas, 
do not all the attending circumstances go to 
show that the President simply intended to 
present the question for judicial investigation 
and settlement? Some on the other side of 
the House have said, with apparent soberness 
and even awful gesture, that it was the inten¬ 
tion of the President to use the Army to over¬ 
ride the laws and strike down the liberties of 
the people. Did he send General Thomas to 
the War Office with an army at his back, or 
even the smallest squad of soldiers? Notan 
individual accompanied him; he went solitary 
and alone. It was purely an unostentatious, 
quiet, civil proceeding, by which, under proper 
forms of law, to elicit the judgment of the 
highest court of the Government upon this 
much-vexed question. Why could not Congress 
have allowed this to be done? Was it not 
necessar)' for a proper discharge of the duties 
of the Executive and for the peace and har-^ 
mony of the country? But to deprive the act 
of all criminal intent or the slightest disposi¬ 
tion to disobey even this law the President, 
being thwarted in his effort with General 
Thomas, soon sends into the Senate the name 
of Thomas Ewing as Secretary of War. 

This would seem to be the whole case in its 
legal aspect. What right has been infringed, 
what liberty destroyed, what law violated by 
the President? 

But there is a section of thistenure-of-office 
bill upon which the President is to be impeached 
that bears in the right direction. Section five 
provides— 

“That if any person shall, contrary to the provis¬ 
ions of this act, accept any appointment to, or em¬ 
ployment in any office, or shall hold or exercise, or 
attempt to hold or exercise, any such office or employ¬ 
ment, he shall be deemed, and is hereby declared, to 
be guilty of a high misdemeanor, and upon trial and 
conviction thereof he shall bo punished therefor by 
a fine not exceeding $10,000, or by imprisonment not 
exceeding five years, or both said punishments, in the 
discretion of the court.” 

Now, do not the facts and circumstances of 
this case show, and has it not been proven, that 
Mr. Stanton himself “attempts to hold or ex¬ 
ercise” the office of Secretary of War “con¬ 
trary to the provisions of this act” and with¬ 
out the shadow of authority, and would not 
be a righteous judgment that he should suffer 
the penalties here prescribed and be required 
for this as well as other and even graver crimes 
to look out for long years from the loathsome 
dungeons of the Dry Tortugas? 

Was it not the President’s duty to remove 
him ? How could he “ take care that the laws 
be faithfully executed” unless there was har¬ 
mony of sentiment in all the Executive Depart¬ 
ments, and especially between him and those 


who are so near to him—the heads of Depart¬ 
ments? They are the members of his official 
family, with whom there ought to be free and 
daily intercourse and among whom there must 
be concurrence of opinion in order promptly 
and properly to execute the laws. Mr. Stanton 
had differed essentially with the President, had 
openly opposed his policy, and had become 
obnoxious, odious, politically and personally, 
to him and his Cabinet. He might have often 
exclaimed to him, in the language of the indig¬ 
nant Cicero, pointing to the conspirator of his 
country’s liberties: 

Quousque tandemabutere, Catalina,patientid nostra V* 

How long, indeed, had he abused their pa¬ 
tience? 

After much tolerance he was politely invited 
to retire, but invitation and hints, amounting 
to insult to a proud man, having no effect, he 
was finally ejected and the head of the Army 
placed in his stead u adinterim.' n This “ silent 
monitor” for a time with seeming fidelity dis¬ 
charged the duties- of the office, but at length, 
in an hour when we thought not, betraying the 
confidence of his chief, suddenly evacuates and 
lets in this scorned and cast-out official, with 
fyhe Senate at his heels. Did ever audacity 
mount higher? Was ever Executive so out¬ 
raged both as to personal and official dignity? 

The President, with that caution and calm¬ 
ness characteristic of the man, for a time bears 
this monstrous encroachment; but who thought 
that he would long submit to it? Who doubted 
that he would persevere in the exercise of his 
prerogatives, and that he would again attempt to 
remove this detestable obstacle to the execu¬ 
tion of the laws. General Thomas is dispatched 
to take charge of the office, and this creeping, 
cringing thing, this “Caliban of the Tempest,” 
obsequiously submits, and only asks time to 
gather up his effects. The General, with the 
courtesy of a soldier, grants his request and 
retires. After a reasonable time he returns, 
but only to find this brazen interloper sur¬ 
rounded by soldiers and on a throne, as it 
were, of bristling bayonets. 

Look, Mr. Speaker, at the War Department 
to-day, sir, and you see armed soldiers stand¬ 
ing around in squads and pacing their meas¬ 
ured lines, guarding this would-be official, who, 
in Falstaffian pomp and heroic mockery, whiles 
away the sunny hours, and at night, I am told, 
swings his execrable limbs in a hammock, doubt¬ 
ing, trembling, shivering, lest the rightful au¬ 
thority should enter in and scowl and hurl him 
into the streets. 

Such, sir, is the spectacle now presented in 
the capital of a great country, famed for the 
supremacy of the civil over the military au¬ 
thority, for proper subordination in its several 
departments, and for a just and wise admin¬ 
istration of the laws. Is the reputation or the 
life of Edwin M. Stanton worth so much that 
the blood of the nation should stand still and 














8 


the whole system be endangered even for a 
moment in this controversy? 

But, sir, the fiat has gone forth ; right or 
wrong, wicked or worthy, the President is to 
be impeached. He is abused, stigmatized, 
anathematized without measure, but he recks 
not of the slanderous missiles that are hurled 
at his head. He sits calm and wise as Ulysses 
in the Grecian tent. The people will, I trust, 
and posterity, I am sure, will, vindicate his 
acts. His highest eulogy hasbeen pronounced 
by himself when, in maintaining the act com¬ 
plained of. he said : “if I had been fully ad¬ 
vised that in thus defending the trust commit¬ 
ted to my hand my own removal was sure to 
follow 1 could not have hesitated, actuated by 
public considerations oftlie highest character.” 
This sentence will go down the ages to come. I 
know, sir, how vain are my words and all our ef¬ 
forts, our appeals, protestations, and votes. Par¬ 
ty supremacy must be maintained at all hazards; 
the revolution must go on and bear down in its 
sweep all obstacles to its accomplishment. 
There has been a Spanish inquisition ; there 
has been a French revolution, and it might not 
be amiss if some would bring to memory the 
fate of a Danton, a Robespierre, and a Marat;* 

I might remind gentlemen of their solemn 
obligations on this occasion as conservators of 
the peace, the laws, and liberty of the country. 
But what are constitutions and laws and oaths 
when the fires of revolution are still blazing 
and its wheels fast rolling on? 

I commend to these swift accusers the sig¬ 
nificant prophecy of Gonverneur Morris, who 
put into shape and penned this Constitution of 
ours; and 1 bid them beware that they do not 
now signally verify it: 

"But. after all, what docs it signify.that men should 
have a written Constitution containing unequivocal 
provisions and limitations? Thelegislativelion will 
not bo entangled in the meshes of a logical net. The 
Legislature will always make the power which it 
wishes to exercise. Attempts to restrain it by other 
means will only render it more outrageous. The idea 
of binding legislators by oaths is puerile. Having 
sworn to exercise the powers granted according to 
their true intent and meaning, they will, when they 


feel a desire to go further, avoid the shame if not the 
guilt of perjury by swearing the true intent and 
meaning to be, according to their comprehension, 
that which suits their purpose.” 

Sir, gentlemen tell us that we may not even 
warn them of their evil deeds or of the popu¬ 
lar wrath to come. They avow that valiant 
men will sustain their action if necessary on 
the battle-field; each equal to two or tlfree 
of any who may oppose them. Vain threats! 
fanatical delusions! 

I do warn them, sir, that the spirit of liberty 
may still lurk in the bosoms of the sturdy yeo¬ 
manry of this land, and if provoked too far 
a million of men will spring to arms to defend 
their rights and to ward off a merciless despot¬ 
ism. 1 might here, without arrogance, speak 
for a hundred thousand riflemen of Kentucky, 
who would be united as one man in the contest, 
equal in courage, strength, and skill to the best 
the world has produced. I admonish gentle¬ 
men that they may not much longer enjoy the 
luxury of this Belshazzar feast. The hand¬ 
writing may already be faintly seen upon the 
wall; they have been weighed in the balance 
and found wanting. Sir, the people of this 
great country, if they are not dead to shame 
and dishonor, if they have a spark of the valor 
of their revolutionary sires, will not submit to 
these accumulated wrongs and outrages ; no ; 
rather they will rise up in the full magnitude 
and majesty of their power, and come, if need 
be, like avalanches from the mountains, like 
hurricanes from the valleys, like the swelling 
waters of mighty rivers, like the surges of the 
lakes and the billow’s of the sea, even to 
this Capitol, batter down these doors, drive 
out those servants who have so misused their 
authority, purge and cleanse these Halls, pos¬ 
sess that tribune and altar, and place in 
these seats true and faithful sentinels, w'ho, 
they and their successors, shall guard forever 
the rich heritage which their fathers have be¬ 
queathed to them. 

I yield the remainder of my time to the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania, [Mr. Boyer.] 






























































































































































































































































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